Volume 3, Issue 23
November, 2001
by Alex Neth
Blocks from the bus station, bordering the neighborhoods that suburbanites avoid, around the corner from a few guys passed out in a pile, The Punch Bowl makes no apologies and wears no costume. This is a place where you can have three beers-- okay, Pabsts-- for less than $6. A place that serves tasty food without any of that arugula or aioli, a place that makes green chile that is-- hold your breath, former Southwesterners and other fans of flavor-- actually, genuinely green. No kidding. You know that I wouldn't fib about something this important.
I can't overstate this (well, I suppose I could if I tried). Denver doesn't make real green chile, the unmistakable, omnipresent stew/topping/hangover cure of our West's lower regions. Almost every metro area restaurant that advertises such is telling you a big fat lie, because they all commit the same, unforgivable affronts: they put tomatoes in and don't use actual chili strips. What results is a pinkish broth more suited for babies than adults, a culinary exercise that drops a weight on your foot. I'd rather eat a bowl of tripe and cigarette butts than assault my delicate sensibilities with such offal.
So when I found The Punch Bowl, I wasn't expecting much. I was happy to see that they had an old-time engraved metal ceiling, the kind that cowboys used to shoot each other under, and the broadly painted upright wooden booths gave me mountaintown flashbacks. Other than that, it just seemed like a comfortable old bar, indistinguishable in the maze of hole-in-the-wall bars and boarded storefronts in the No Man's Land between North Capitol Hill and the Ballpark neighborhood. No great shakes. I did, however, notice the tap right away.
That's right. Pabst Blue Ribbon, baby. Award-winning beer, the stuff of a thousand Midwestern breakfasts, the familiar red-white-and-blue of my childhood refrigerator. The only brew that can, in a pinch, serve as both beverage and industrial pickling agent. I knew then that the prodigal son had indeed returned home. From that moment on, it was all Pabst and posole, a two-day whirlwind of beer, burritos, and more beer. I talked to a retired postman named Dave for a while. He came in muttering, but after a few bottles of Coors he spoke up and told and me about how he used to deliver mail to Adolf Coors, Jr. when he lived in Belcaro Park, right about the time he was kidnapped and murdered. I listened to an old rouge try to sweet-talk our little freckled bartender with a story about itching powder in the Army barracks. I sat on the same stool that a thousand others had rested cheek on, a guy sitting with other guys, enjoying our shared disease. I looked at beaten old frame photos of baseballers past-- Dom DiMaggio, Joe's underrated, bespectacled brother; Whitey Ford, the best money pitcher ever; Carl Hubbell, the great malevolent lefty the '30's Giants, the man who once struck out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx and Joe Cronin in succession. The pictures and my fellow drinkers outdate me by decades, but, like them, I'll likely spend most of my life in a bar.
Did I mention the green chile? Sloppy, chunky, spicy, green. Green. Green. I was so moved when this beautiful mess showed up on my shredded-beef burrito (or as they say on the menu, shreaded) that I had to order another Pabst. After all, what better way for the disparate worlds of the desert and the breadbasket to come together? Almost like a coke commercial, but without the coke and the actors and the singing. But I digress, as is my wont. I'll leave the food stuff to Bobby. My tattoos aren't nearly qualification enough. The important thing is, hell, here's a spot. This place has everything I look for in a bar, except for dwarf-oriented adult entertainment and a giant water slide, and since the demise of Celebrity Sports Center, where do you really find that in Denver, anyway? More of a Colorado Springs thing nowadays. If you can be happy with cheap booze, a 4-7 happy hour that promises two-for-one drafts, a friendly, unpretentious serving staff, and actual green fucking chile, then here you go. Show up and tell 'em the kid with the goiter who drinks Pabst sent you.
And if you can't be happy with that, there is something seriously wrong with you. Go seek professional help. Do it now. Now! Go! Every second you waste is another second you spend as an idiot.
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